The BBC has admitted it posted pictures of actors from the film The Firm on the Crimewatch website and wrongly claimed they were football hooligans earlier this week.

Yesterday the Sun also printed the pictures of The Firm actors on under the headline "Hooligan Hunt" on page 25 after the Metropolitan police supplied them to the paper. The Sun is expected to run another story tomorrow admitting its mistake and blaming the Met for the error.

The corporation today also blamed the Met for the mistake, saying police had provided its Crimewatch show with the images.

Earlier this week the police released 66 shots of people they want to trace following violence during a football match between West Ham and Millwall in August.

Crimewatch ran an item about the search for the suspects on BBC1 on Wednesday night. The images did not appear on screen, but they were posted on the programme's website.

Although most of them pictured people who were allegedly involved in the violence, they also included six headshots of actors who appeared in The Firm, a British film centred on football-related violence.

The film was released shortly after the trouble at West Ham's Upton Park ground in east London, during a Carling Cup game against local rivals Millwall on 25 August. The original version of The Firm, starring Gary Oldman, was shown on BBC2 in the 1980s.

A statement on the BBC's Crimewatch website said: "Yesterday we published photographs of 66 men supplied by the police who told us they were wanted in connection with violent behaviour at a football match.

"Six of the images supplied by the police were sent by them in error and the men pictured were not wanted for any crime. The police have asked us to pass on to the men concerned their sincere apologies for this mistake."

The Met put the mix-up down to it having been supplied with footage screened on the night of the game, which included shots of actual rioters.

Police added that the package also included scenes from The Firm as it included parallels between the real-life fracas and the fictional fights depicted in the film.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Service apologised for the error. She said: "Newham Borough Police regret this mistake and any embarrassment it has caused, and wish to apologise unreservedly to those affected. The borough is actively seeking to contact those persons whose images were released and will be offering personal apologies once they have been identified."

She added that an inquiry into the incident had been launched.

A spokeswoman for Sun owner News International declined to comment.

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